Three and a half miles outside Stratford and still retaining its country setting in Wilmcote, this timbered Tudor farmhouse is the house that Shakespeare's mother, Mary Arden, grew up in before marrying John Shakespeare and moving to Henley Street.

It is also home to the Shakespeare countryside museum, two historic farms, displays of farm implements, daily demonstrations by the Heart of England falconry, a blacksmith's forge and a duckpond.